Thomas Jackson left for the Military Academy at West Point.
Thomas never returned to Jackson’s Mill except to visit on a few occasions in the intervening years before the Civil War. He went on to have a career in the Army before taking up a position as an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute. During the American Civil War he fought for the Confederacy where he would earn the nickname of “Stonewall” which became the name by which he was best known, as he was one of the most famous figures of that conflict though he would die during the war, in May 1863. His fame directly contributed to much of the early tourism of the site, which continues to present day.